George Gilder: Trump Can Succeed On Trade By Ending Global Currency Manipulation

Discovery Institute co-founder and Senior Fellow George Gilder writes at The Federalist: World trade in goods and services has morphed into a gigantic manipulative carnival of currency trading. This needs to change.

Folks, we have a consensus here. Formidable thinkers such as Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and David Stockman, some 370 economists including 19 Nobel Laureates, and editors at the Economist, Fortune, and Barron’s all believe that Donald Trump as president is a menace to world trade and prosperity.

President Trump has talked about 35 percent tariffs on foreign goods and an array of “border taxes,” such as the tariff with Mexico he proposed last week. He intends to name China a so-called “currency manipulator” on the basis of a mere bilateral trade gap. He’s denounced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the omnibus Pacific Trade Treaty (PTT). He’s condemned China’s acceptance in the World Trade Organization (WTO—followed all this with a threat to withdraw from the WTO altogether.

In light of all this, you must concede that fear of a trade war is a plausible anxiety. It is held by Republicans, libertarians, and conservatives, as much as by Democrats, liberals, and socialists.